Sewing Tutorial: Shorten Lengthy Spaghetti Straps with Cute Bows

Sometimes you buy a dress that’s perfect in every way except for the straps. When you’re faced with spaghetti straps that are not adjustable and way too long, you can use this tutorial to shorten them in a few quick steps.

I’ve had this pretty loungewear dress in my wardrobe for a while now. I bought it online, and when it arrived the shoulder straps were too long, and they weren’t adjustable. I had a vision of creating cute little bows. I sketched it out in my journal and wrote down the steps to get to that end goal. I did the hard work so you don’t have to – follow the below how-to if you’d like to create cute bow straps for your own dresses and nightgowns!

What You’ll Need

GRAB YOUR SUPPLIES

  1. Sewing Machine
  2. Matching thread
  3. Scissors
  4. Pins
  5. Safety pins
  6. Tailor’s chalk

This tutorial works best when you have to remove at least 4 inches (total) from each strap.

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Step by Step Instructions

Step 1: Put on your dress. Once you have it on, stand in front of a mirror. You may find it easier to have a friend help you with this part. You’re going to take your straps in your hands and pinch them between your fingers until the dress hangs at a length that looks right to you. Insert a safety pin into where you’d like the strap to hang. Check out the photos below on my dress form to see what I mean.

TIPS

Be sure to check out how the dress looks from the front and the back to ensure that the hem hangs parallel to the ground. Adjust your pins accordingly.

Step 2: Determine where to sew your first stitch. Leaving the safety pins in, carefully remove your dress. Now, it’s time to measure how many inches are from the top fold of each spaghetti strap to the bobby pin. For me, it was 2 inches, so I made my first stitch at the 2-inch mark.


troubleshooting

Help! What do I do if my straps each have different measurements?
When I measured my straps, one strap was 2.25 inches from the top fold to the bobby pin. The other strap measured 2 inches. You will want to remove the same amount from each strap.

Now, best practice would be to either (1) try the dress on again and and re-pin until I got the same measurements for each strap or (2) determine the average of 2.25 and 2 inches and make my first stitch at that mark. But I was feeling lazy and couldn’t be bothered. So, I decided to make my first stitch at the 2 inch mark. Choose your own adventure, don’t overthink it, and meet me at step 3!

Step 3: Sew your first stitch. I used a straight stretch stitch suitable for knits, since my dress is of a stretchy material. Read your sewing machine manual to determine the right stitch for your dress. I used a contrasting thread so it shows up better in the photos for this tutorial – but you’ll want to use a thread that matches your fabric.

Step 4: Now comes the fun part: it’s time to make the bow! You will have a loop above where you made your stitch. Pinch this loop down as shown in the photos in the carousel below. This will be the foundation of your bow.

Step 5: Ensure you have centered your flattened loop over the seam of the stitch you made in step 3. We want our bow to be even on both sides. Then, slide a pin into the foundation of your bow, as in the photo below.

Step 6: Use chalk to draw two parallel lines to serve as guidelines for where you will sew your stitches to create your bow.

Step 7: Sew over the chalk lines that you drew with matching thread.

Congratulations – you are all done! Try on your new dress and give a little twirl.

I hope you enjoyed this sewing DIY. Have fun wearing your newly tailored dress!

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Did you TRY THIS how-to?

I would love to see or hear about what you created. Comment below or email me a photo at [email protected] so I can see your creations!

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